'Flash' of insight on free speech

9:33 PM,
Feb. 16, 2014

Written by

Gene Policinski
Inside the First Amendment

If you associate the First Amendment more with the rarified air of constitutional debate, or powdered wigs and colonial days, try thinking in more modern terms - say speed traps and blinking headlights.

The First Amendment goes to work every day alongside us. We regularly, if not daily, use the freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition to worship as we will, to speak our minds freely and to ask our elected leaders to make changes on matters of public interest.

There are disputes over the way we apply those core freedoms, sometimes reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. But at other ...